The Kremlin has been accused of using ethnic minority troops as “cannon fodder” in Ukraine amid evidence that non-Russian soldiers form a grossly disproportionate share of the mounting deaths in Vladimir Putin’s invasion force.
Analysis of Russian casualty figures and social media posts suggests that soldiers recruited from the outer reaches of the former Soviet Union, including the largely Muslim North Caucasus, make up as much as a third of known military fatalities and in some cases up to 50 per cent of the wounded in the war in Ukraine.
Anecdotal evidence from the battlefields of Ukraine suggests that many of Russian dead left on the frontline are wearing white bands on their uniforms, denoting non-regular Russian units. These units largely consist of ethnic minorities such as the Muslim republics of Dagestan or Ingushetia or far-flung locations like Buryatia, whose inhabitants are of Mongolian origin. Minorities account for about 20 per cent of the Russian population.
The Kremlin and its senior generals have long relied on strongarm tactics and factors such as poverty and lack of social mobility to recruit disproportionately among minorities and in rural areas.
Kamil Guleev, an expert on the Russian military at the Washington-based Wilson Centre think-tank, said: “The [ethnic] minority factor in the Russian army is vastly underrated when discussing the course of the Ukrainian war. Ethnic minorities are not so much a minority there. Judging from the casualty lists, minorities are wildly over-represented on the battlefields as cannon fodder.”
Mr Galeev, who produced the figure based on the Rostov hospital list, said there was disparate but considerable evidence that minority recruits were paying a disproportionate price on Ukraine’s battlefields. The Astrakhan region in southern Russia is 68 per cent ethnic Russian and 15 per cent Kazakh, yet a list of Ukraine fatalities from the region was 85 per cent Kazakh.
Evidence from the frontline and casualty lists suggests ethnic minority troops from far-flung corners of the former Soviet Union have suffered a disproportionate share of fatalites and injuries among Vladimir Putin's invasion force
inews.co.uk
For comparison, this is from 2005 regarding US War casualties:
Whites, who constitute 67% of the active-duty and reserve forces, accounted for 71% of the fatalities. African Americans are 17% of the overall force and were 9% of the fatalities. Hispanics are 9% of the force and were 10% of the fatalities.
For whites, the percentage of deaths was the lowest since the Defense Department began keeping such statistics. In Korea, 80% of fatalities were white, in Vietnam, 86%, and in the Persian Gulf War, 76%.
The statistical report was requested by Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, and Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.). The majority of the report deals with a racial breakdown of U.S. forces by job category and rank for each of the services.
Skelton and Rangel wanted the report to further discussion of the nation’s all-volunteer approach to military service.
Rangel has suggested the nation may need to return to a draft so that the burden of military service in wartime is equally shared.
The report appears to support the contention that service in the military reserves is most attractive to young men living in low- or medium-income families in rural communities.
African Americans are 17% of the troops and were 9% of the dead, a study says. Hispanics, who are 9% of force, were 10% of those killed.
www.latimes.com